Sorry, Sunset Park and Bed-Stuy Commuters: Your Subway Rides Are about to Be More Hellish than Usual

Just when you thought your commute couldn’t get any worse, MTA Chairman Thomas Prendergast proves that when you’re dealing with the MTA anything is possible.

Last Friday, Prendergast revealed a new alternative to station rehabilitation efforts aimed at speeding up MTA plans of making stations “cleaner, brighter… easier to navigate, with better and more intuitive wayfinding, as well as a modernized look and feel” by closing 30 stations through rotations for weeks and even months at a time, according to Gothamist. The MTA’s goal is to have the renovations completed by 2020 even if it means displacing Sunset Park and Bed-Stuy commuters in the process.

The switch would put an end to the dreaded nights-and-weekend station closures that have caused many a frustrated commuter to be displaced far from their intended location when trying to navigate the weekend route diversions, and it will allow a “6-8 weeks” job to take the place of “42 weeks on weekends and nights our lives are totally disrupted,” Prendergast said in defense of the new initiative.

Of course, we understand that expediting the renovations, which will also bring about new signage, new lighting, and On the Go touch screen kiosks, is a great idea in theory—and maybe even practically!—but really, they couldn’t have made the switch any other time of the year that wasn’t during the heart of winter? Especially now that it’s finally getting cold? And also, isn’t there room to tackle any of the grocery list of non-cosmetic MTA problems like overcrowding or rising ticket fares? Maybe next year.

1 COMMENT

I think these are PLANNED closures, not imminent ones. So your comment about the “heart of winter” is moot. Also, they haven’t given an exact timeline, but I don’t think they plan on closing ALL of these stations at once. Just each one at some point. So ‘hopefully” they will only close one sunset park stop at a time, leaving alternatives. Although, this is the MTA so I guess nothing is for certain and your assumption that it will suck is understandable.